Wyrmshadow: The Duskreign Prophecy

Gildwyn the Gold

Gildwyn the Gold

Gildwyn is a 600 year old female Gold Dragon. Five centuries ago, a truly ancient Grey Dragon came to Gildwyn and enlisted her in a sacred trust. This dragon, Onaga, had been the guardian of a 100,000 year old petrified egg. This egg was one of the earliest creations of the ancient dragon god, Bahamut, and despite its incredible age, the light of life yet lay dormant within its calcified shell. Throughout the millenia, dragons from all walks of life had been enlisted to protect this egg, and Onaga had chosen Gildwyn to be the egg’s next guardian.

During a raid on Gildwyn’s lair in the mystical realm of Draconia, a powerful young Red Dragon named Crimsin stole away with Gildwyn’s hoard of treasure, the ancient egg being among his spoils. In earnest, Gildwyn gave chase, and after a long and arduous battle with Crimsin, the Red Dragon confessed that he cared not for the treasures. He had drawn Gildwyn into a trap, not to slay her, but to mate with her. He could not approach her as a man would a woman because a love between a Chromatic and Metallic dragon was considered unconscionable, and that went doubly for the powerful Reds and Golds. Gildwyn realized at that moment that she loved Crimsin, despite the darkness that surrounded him, because he went to such great lengths just to be with her.

Keeping their marriage secret, Gildwyn and Crimsin went their separate ways for many, many years, taking advantage of whatever fleeting chances that presented themselves to spend even the briefest of times in one another’s arms. After a wile, Gildwyn informed Crimsin why the egg she protected was so important, and he pledged his own life to preserving the egg as well. Knowing that they would never be allowed to have children of their own due to the taboo nature of their relationship, Crimsin grew increasingly hostile toward Thoron, the Platinum Dragon that held a tenuous rule in Draconia. Despite her efforts to the contrary, Crimsin gathered all the dissident dragons in Draconia and began a bitter war to topple Thoron’s reign, that he might take control himself and rescind the restrictions Thoron had in place regarding the separation of Metallics and Chromatics.

Onaga came to Gildwyn during the heart of the war, which was something of a relief to her, as she had no idea which side she wished to fight for. The ancient Grey Dragon brought Gildwyn to a secret place deep within a massive cavern beneath the great mountains of the Rohn Highlands on Materia. In this place, there was an enormous dragon corpse, its body larger than a mountain, with a great castle built atop its massive skull. Onaga informed her that this was the corpse of the creator of Wyrmshadow, the Legendary Wyrm itself.

Within Castle Dragonskull, Gildwyn was introduced to Inzaeus, a two-headed dragon that shared with her a dark prophecy foretelling the end of the world at the hands of a mortal wielding power not meant for mortal hands. In the visions, she recognized the role she and Crimsin could play in preventing this coming apocalypse. Onaga explained that Inzaeus was the founder of a clandestine group calling itself the Luminous Guardians. Inzaeus offered to allow both Gildwyn and Crimsin to join their group and take refuge with them so long as Crimsin ended his conflict with Thoron.

Due to the Curse of Asmous, no dragons could long remain alive in the atmosphere of Materia, which was why they had to retreat to the safety of their own realm of Draconia. Gildwyn asked how it was that Inzaeus and Onaga had survived for so long in Materia, despite the curse. It was at that time when she was introduced to another member of the Guardians, a gnomish illusionist named Zook. He told Gildwyn that his people had been working on the problem for a long time, when they came up with a solution.

By wearing a specially enchanted crystal that filtered their blood of the fiendish toxins that made the atmosphere of Wyrmshadow deadly to them, a dragon could survive in Materia indefinitely. However, the materials and spellcraft that created the crystals were very rare. They fashioned one for Gildwyn, and another for her lover, Crimsin, but could offer no more until the Duskreign Prophecy foretold by Inzaeus was successfully averted.

Returning to give the good news to Crimsin, she discovered that the war between her husband and her king had ended on its own. A group of powerful demons managed to steal their way into Draconia, and both the Chromatic Dissidents and the Thranosian Order came together to repel their common foe. Among the demons was a black dragon named Nightstrafe, who had been captured by the demons and forced to undergo gruesome experimentation that left him a fiendish shell of what he once was.

After repelling the demons and slaying Nightstrafe, Thoron grew to understand that the true enemy of all Wyrmshadow lay in Infernia. He offered pardons to the Chromatic Dissidents, and after Crimsin was informed of Gildwyn’s intentions of defecting to join the Luminous Guardians with him, he agreed to Thoron’s terms and ended the brief Draconian Civil War. However, Gildwyn soon realized that during the demons’ attack, someone had stolen into her lair and taken a single piece of treasure from her hoard… the Egg of Bahamut.

After fifty years of searching, Gildwyn had all but given up hope. However, while she had failed to find the egg, she did uncover clues as to the identity of the thieves she sought. Descending to search for this thief accompanied by the Silver Dragon, Argentum, and the Bronze Dragon, Roscale, she briefly stopped to pay her respects to Lady Vera Castille, whose grandmother was another member of the Luminous Guardians. Gildwyn had reason to believe that one of her husband’s contemporaries, a human witch named Sophia Belgrave, may have had something to do with the theft of the egg. While Vera knew nothing of the theft, she implored Gildwyn to use her draconic ability to look into the souls of humanity to tell her whether her son, Haagen, was heading down a dark path.

Gildwyn challenged young Haagen, body, wits, and will, and for a moment, she thought she may have found the person that Inzaeus’s prophecy foretold. However, she soon changed her mind, as Haagen’s gentler nature overcame all the shadows within his heart, and she told Vera with confidence that her son was to grow into a good man one day… perhaps even a great man. After leaving, Gildwyn continued her search for the lost egg, to no avail. While traveling in human guise, she met Weidrick Castille, the uncle of Lady Vera’s warlock husband. Realizing that Weidrick was a good and decent man, she revealed her true nature to him and asked for his help in locating Sophia Belgrave. While Weidrick could not help her in this regard, he did have something else in mind.

He told her to travel to the Tornsail Inn in the nearby coastal town of Kaselon. He thought she would be pleased by the results of the trip. She took his advice, and to her great surprise, she met a lovely young woman working as a barmaid in the Inn, unaware of just how special and important she truly was. This young woman was Electria, the dragon that hatched from an egg a thousand centuries old. However, before Gildwyn could truly address Electria’s importance, Thoron, Argentum, Crimsin, and Blight, the female Black Dragon widow of the fallen dragon Nightstrafe, arrived in Kaselon to fight for Electria’s fealty. Urged toward re-starting the war by the honeyed tongue of Blight, Crimsin thought that an important dragon like Electria, if pledged to his side of the conflict, would ensure him a victory in toppling Thoron’s rule.

Gildwyn allowed Thoron to escape with Electria while pretending to surrender herself to Crimsin as a hostage. Blight informed Crimsin that her debt to him was paid, and she wished the two lovers more time with one another than she ever got with poor Nightstrafe. Crimsin had arranged the whole thing to get Gildwyn away, both from Thoron and her mad quest to find the lost egg. He was impatient, not wanting to wait any longer to begin their lives together. A team of dragons led by Argentum hatched a daring rescue that Crimsin wasn’t expecting, and to keep up appearances, she had to go along with the rescue. She sent Crimsin a message shortly thereafter that she would soon escape on her own and meet him at Castle Dragonskull, where they could be together forever.

After making her escape seem as if it was a kidnapping, Gildwyn donned her Dragonblood Crystal and descended to Materia once more, finding her way to her lover’s arms and rejoining her allies in the Luminous Guardians. Not long after, it came to her attention that Electria was seeking to rescue her from Crimsin once more. Inzaeus called for Onaga to go and collect the young Electrum Dragon and bring her before him, that she might see the Duskreign Prophecy with her own mind’s eye.

After being told the truth, about her marriage to Crimsin, her membership in the Luminous Guardians, and the Duskreign Prophecy, Gildwyn asked Electria to keep all those secrets, return to Thoron’s side, and train for the wars yet to come. The dark times foretold by Inzaeus had already begun to manifest in Wyrmshadow, and when the time came, Gildwyn believed that Electria may be the key to preventing the end of the world…